Blog: TAPPED

MORE SHAKEUP! The hapless Scott McClellan resigned this morning as White House press secretary. The conventional rap on McClellan has long been that, in stark contrast to the near-sociopathic unflappability with which his predecessor Ari Fleischer could lie and stonewall on behalf of the president, he always showed the flop sweat and strain when doing […]

TODAY’S MUST READ ON IRAN. A great deal of ink has been spilled on Iran of late, but very little of it on proposing any kind of US action other than engagement through the United Nations or (futile and probably self-destructive) air strikes. Slate‘s Fred Kaplan has started to close that gap, arguing: The military […]

FOR FIGHT CLUB POLITICS. Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin‘s Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives is the subject of this week’s TPMCafe Book Club. Eilperin’s book highlights the modern crisis of partisan acrimony and incivility in Congress and argues that the body’s traditional deliberative and bipartisan legislative functions have basically […]

THE GREAT MCCAIN DIVIDE. Looking at the various defenses of John McCain coming from centrist and liberal writers over the past few weeks and discussed by Matt and Ezra below, I think what we’re seeing is the emergence of a new opinion fault line that McCain will have trouble crossing in 2008: the divide between […]

THE POWER OF SOCIAL CAPITAL. I suspect most readers of this site are not regular readers of The Wall Street Journal‘s Weekend Edition — I know I’m not — so I want to highly recommend the paper’s Saturday front-pager “Illegal at Princeton” if you can find a copy or subscribe online. The tale of Dan-el […]

THE ORIGINS OF THE ARTICLE. My first thought upon reading Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer‘s article about “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” was that if they were going for maximal controversy, they’d missed the moment of greatest potential impact by several years. Their description of an expansionist Israel dominated by the Likud was […]

NO, MCCAIN REALLY IS THAT CONSERVATIVE. As my colleague Matt noticed, the good folks over at The New Republic are playing some full-court press in defense of John McCain. A couple days ago, editor-at-large Peter Beinart offered his plea to see McCain stick close to his populist, contrarian roots, even offering up a unity scenario […]

HISTORY REPEATS. Can’t have a war in Iran without Joe Lieberman‘s involvement, so that’s taken care of. Which reminds me of something I wanted to say about the whole “how should Democrats handle Iran?” question, namely that the first step is to take this seriously as a party issue. More than one donkey was inclined […]

CLINTON POLLSTER SAYS HILLARY HAS MORE THAN A “50-50 CHANCE” OF BECOMING PRESIDENT. In an appearance that’s sure to get the wheels of will-she-or-won’t-she-in-2008 speculation spinning, Clinton pollster Doug Schoen told a panel discussion last night that Hillary “undeniably” has “a 50-50 chance, at least” of becoming president, according to an account posted at the […]

FAKE DARFUR GRANDSTANDING. If you want to understand the how the Bush administration can score political points while taking a minimalist approach to the crisis in Darfur, observe how the press reacts to Ambassador John Bolton�s forthcoming disclosure of the names of four individuals slated for Security Council sanctions. The Security Council will meet in […]